


If You Were an Ocean, I'd Learn to Float

by orphan_account



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, and theories on how their agency works, lots of talking about time travel, one sided but not what you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-06 03:03:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11591592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They had been in their tiny motel room they rented together, it had made sense logically for Cavendish to kiss Dakota in that moment. They had both been sitting on the bed, getting along fairly well, telling jokes, Dakota was smiling and staring at him, he looked so handsome. Dakota had let Cavendish finish, but didn't kiss back. That's why Cavendish pulled away.





	If You Were an Ocean, I'd Learn to Float

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so, full disclosure, I don't ship these two AT ALL. I get why people do, though- and I did notice something browsing through the works on tumblr and here.  
> It's often popular to make this ship into a one-sided crush, but it's always Vinnie having a crush on Balthazar. Never the other way around.
> 
> So that got me thinking about what that would be like if we flipped the script, and the relationship was a one-sided crush on BALTHAZAR'S side?
> 
> A lot of inspiration from this fic came from a run of Captain America comics by Mark Miller (not my...favorite writer, but he had a lot of interesting things to say, including:) where he made a point to mention that Captain America, being from the 1940's and sent forward in time, can't relate to anyone under the age of 80. He hangs out in the old-folks home because those are the only people he can connect with any more.  
> How would like be for members of a time travel agency- would they only be able to truly relate to each other? I think it's worth discussion! So, a lot of this story revolves around that: is it possible to still relate to people who live in a normal, 24-hour 365-day timeline when you yourself don't experience time in a linear fashion.
> 
> Since I don't ship these two I can't promise I'll write any more, but if you have a request or want to see these ideas expanded upon please leave a comment!

Age wasn't REALLY supposed to matter to them. That's what they all told themselves, anyway.

When you worked in time travel, the way the other 99% of the world perceived time, and their position in it, became irrelevant. Time wasn't a one-way street; Cavendish preferred to compare it to a mountain range one floated above, where you could see every peak of every mountain all at once in perfect clarity, and you just floated to which one you needed to go to. Dakota thought that was overly poetic and preferred to just say it wasn't a one way street, it was "more like a...lots-of-way street. There's lots of ways." 

You started using terms like "PTL," which was your "personal time time," or basically, how physically old your body was. You could keep track of it with a special watch the agency gave you, though many chose to ignore it all together. Age didn't really matter, you technically could argue every time you jumped forward your age increased by that many years, and decreased every time you jumped back. No time traveler ever celebrated their birthday, and if they wanted to, they could jump forward and know exactly when on the GTL (global time line, the 365-day year calendar normal people used) you were going to die. Which, again, didn't matter- when you were a time-traveler, you were unstuck from time. Your GTL may say you were going to die in 2011, which might translate to you being 88 years old on your PTL. It was just going to happen when it happened. 

When you joined the agency you stopped thinking of yourself by Earth's regular time. You were unstuck from time and mainly used the agency's "cycles," (their unit of time, which was about 8 Earth months) to track how long you were in training but not your age. The agency was stationed in the 2100's, but time travel had been invented long before that, so much that people from the 1800's walks alongside recruits who weren't going to be born until the 2500's. It didn't really matter how long things took. It didn't really matter how old you were.

Both Cavendish and Dakota kept track of their PTLs.  
Cavendish knew on the GTL he was born in the Gregorian year 1960 in Westminster Abbey. He remembered his parents names were Roscoe and Marilyn, and they died in the year 2000. They died at the same time due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Cavendish, like most everyone else in the agency, didn't join until after his parents had passed on (if the agents ever had parents at all.) He spent 12 cycles in training and knew by what would have been his parent's standards, he was 55 years old. 

Dakota, for many reasons, was an odd case in the agency. Not just because he still kept track of his PTL (Cavendish did too, after all,) but he joined BEFORE his parent's deaths. Dakota wasn't even set to be born in the GTL until 2015, he joined up in 2040 when he was 21 years old and his parents fully aware. Dakota, born via a Cuban-American surrogate in 2015, had two fathers who lived in Danville. They were an older couple who had tried adoption three times, and had been rejected every time for being a same-sex couple. What little Balthazar knew about Dakota's global life was that he was, in Dakota's on words, "a bit of a shithead," as a teen, and think his parents were okay with him being recruited possibly because it might help straighten him out.  
Since the team's escapades with the Murphy child were happening right around the time Vinnie was born, in around the same area, Cavendish had actually caught sight of his parents with him at least twice. They looked very, very happy both times Cavendish had caught them out on the sidewalk, Vinnie seeming to know sign language (one of his parents used it, it looked like) before he could talk. If Vinnie's parents did think he needed discipline, it was either Dakota interpreting his parent's motivations incorrectly, or maybe he did act differently as a teenager. 

Joining the agency when his parents were alive wasn't the only thing that made Dakota odd compared to the rest of the agents, however. It was odd, sure (who would do this when they still had good ties back in the GTL?) just as it was a little striking Dakota knew at all times not only was his body aged 31 years, and he happened to still remember his birthday was November 25, 2015, it wasn't even his general nonchalant attitude toward their work as a whole despite being FULLY capable to be their top recruit if he wanted to be. (It frustrated Cavendish a little, but he understood the reasoning, Dakota had told him the story. Dakota was too young and hot-headed when he joined up at 21 GTL years old, he tried to change too much, it blew up in his face. It happened to a lot of newbies.) 

The strangest thing was that he cared about his age. 

When you worked for the agency the two worked for, your friend group became very limited to those people who worked along side you. You just didn't make friends with people who were going to be dead the next time you jumped in time, you especially didn't make friends with little kids who caused everything that could go wrong TO go wrong, but Dakota did anyway. Cavendish ignored normal people. Dakota talked to them. He felt a connection to the GTL very, very few people in the agency did. Dakota never fully seemed to feel that isolation others in their line of work did that the only people they could ever be friends with, date, love, or marry, were fellow time-travelers. 

Cavendish, however, did. His whole life was the agency, he had no connection to the GTL at all after his only family there died. It wasn't out of spite or sadness (time was a mountain range- his parents were as alive as they were dead,) but because it just made sense to him to forget the years and the life normal people followed and just start using this one. If you lived on Saturn, you wouldn't keep using Earth years, you'd measure your life by Saturn's metric.  
Balthazar had plans. He slowly made plans over the cycles he worked with Dakota, and he made those plans the more he realized he couldn't imagine living out the rest of his PTL without him. 

He couldn't say he developed feelings for Dakota "over time" because, well, what time? But he could admit he started out in a place of thinking Dakota was obnoxious, lazy, and incompetent to enjoying his company, liking to see him smile, admiring him, and understanding him. If his whole world was the few people he'd come across in the agency, Dakota was pretty much his whole world. Dakota was resourceful, charming, boyishly handsome- he had spent enough cycles with him to know this was it.

So he made plans, as he often did. Their dating circle was limited to the agency, of course, so as soon as Dakota got over his little crush on Savannah, they could finally start dating, get married within the agency, and that would be that! Oh, he'd even be a little illogical, just for Dakota. Maybe they'd retire, pick a spot in the GTL they both liked and live out the rest of their physical lifespans together. Maybe they'd go really off-book and be the first time travelling couple in the agency to adopt a kid- Dakota loved kids. IT had never been done before, the semantics of raising a child in a time travelling lifestyle were a little absurd, but both of them were too! So Dakota would love it. It just made sense for them to be together. It made sense.

It didn't make sense when Dakota said,  
"Hey, I'm flattered, but...aren't you a little...old for me?"

What did that mean? What did any of that mean?  
Who still used their GTL when dating in the agency? 

They had been in their tiny motel room they rented together, it had made sense logically for Cavendish to kiss Dakota in that moment. They had both been sitting on the bed, getting along fairly well, telling jokes, Dakota was smiling and staring at him, he looked so handsome. Dakota had let Cavendish finish, but didn't kiss back. That's why Cavendish pulled away. 

"I mean, it's nothin' against you! I-I'm flattered, and all, but-"

"You...what?" Cavendish blinked, incredulously.

"I mean, you're like, 55, right? I'm 31, it's not a terrible at all- celebrities have done worse after all- but it's...yeah, too much for me." He smiled crookedly at Cavendish, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Dakota, if it's Savannah, then-"

"It's not Savannah! It's not even a boy-girl thing, I'm cool with whatever," Dakota said, waving a hand nonchalantly, "I just think...I mean, I want someone closer to my age. Maybe even outside the agency."

"Closer to your-?!" Cavendish was angry. He was flustered, embarrassed, and completely confused, which manifested in him standing up, his face reddening for a variety of reasons, rising anger one of them. "You do realize who we work for, correct?"

"Mr. Block!...Right? I got that right, yeah?"

"Time travelers! We're time travelers!" Cavendish waved his hands in the air, stepping closer to Dakota, and bending down a little, Dakota still sitting down on the bed. "What makes you think an age difference matters at all to us? When has time ever mattered to us?"

Dakota blinked and frowned, sitting up a little bit straighter and looking a little concerned. "You're going to be, like...a full-grown adult by the time I'm even born on Earth, Cav."

"No I'm not!" he replied, balling his hands up into fists and looking up at the ceiling. "We're both adults right now! That's what matters!"

"That doesn't bother you, at all. That on Earth right now Murphy could be passing by a little baby named Vinnie Dakota, and you may see me that way, and you'll think, 'that's the guy I'm dating.'"

"Who else are you going to be with, Vinnie?" Cavendish said, laughing incredulously. The two paused, Dakota standing up, and Cavendish suddenly looking sorry.

"I didn't mean it like that-"

"No, you did," Dakota said, trying to push past Cavendish and head for the door, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "I know I'm not the best catch out there but I don't h-"

"I didn't mean it that way!" Cavendish said, grabbing Dakota's arm, Dakota stopping but not making eye contact. "I meant, who else can you relate to besides us?"

The two were silent for a long minute, Cavendish continuing, "Can you look me in the eye and tell me you could honestly and truly relate to people in the GTL. That you'd ever, EVER be able to have anything in common with them any more." 

Cavendish's grip loosened, his eyes falling to the floor as Vinnie slowly turned around and caught his expression.

"...This one isn't about me, is it?"

"It still partially is, I suppose," Cavendish said, sitting back down on the bed, Vinnie following suit. 

"Is that really how you feel? That it's impossible for us to ever be able to relate to them?"

"Isn't it? Wh-What do we have in common with them any more, we don't think about the world the same way any more. They think of time as linear, we physically can't anymore. We don't have any base of knowledge for pop culture, or trends, or what clothes to wear, for Heaven's sake, you and I don't even know which one of us is dressed from the 1870's and which is the 1970's!" Dakota didn't respond, the atmosphere thick enough to be cut with a knife. The two sit next to each other on the bed in silence, Dakota unsure of what to say. Cavendish only continuing after a long while, "We can't...click with them anymore."

"I will admit, I have no idea what anyone down there is talking about half the time. I just got caught up 19 years and that's it. I don't even know where a Walkman fits in with iPods- were they before or after or what?" Dakota said, laughing a little and smiling at Cavendish, trying to get him to smile again. He sighed and looked around, putting his hands on the mattress. "Sorry that I'm too globally-minded."

"It's not your fault. If anything, I think that's to be admired. You relate to them more than I can, or any of us can. We're in this bubble of only being able to truly relate to fellow time-travelers, and you're able to pass in-between the two worlds seamlessly."

"You're getting poetic on me again, Cav."

"I'll...never be able to see me as a 55 year old and you as a 31 year old, Dakota. I just won't. You're just you to me."

"You are too, man," Dakota said, patting Balthazar on the back, "I think I'm just too new at this to get over what I think I should be attracted to in my head." 

"You're not too new. I've just been here too long to be able to think how you think. It would certainly help."

"That Murphy kid seems to like you. That's one person in the GTL you relate to!" Dakota said, smiling big. Cavendish smiled and rolled his eyes. Dakota rubbed his back a little before standing up, looking his his pocket for quarters for the snack machine down the hall. "And hey, if anything, I'm the odd one out here, alright? I can help you get on Brick's good side if you want someone more...agency-minded."

Cavendish smiled incredulously, laughing a little, "What?"

"What? You don't think he's hot? He could TOTALLY go for you." Dakota waggles his fingers, stepping back closer again on one foot, leaning forward and smiling mischievously, "The time-travelling power-couple of the century- Cavendish and Brick, super spies who get the most DANGEROUS missions. I'm telling you, as soon as this pistachio thing's over and Mr. Block realizes what an asset you are, you're going to be going full James Bond with him."

"James Bond is the...the one with..."

"Oh come on, that was your time period! Okay- we're watching the James Bonds for research when I get back from the vending machine. Get the DVD player ready." Dakota grabbed Balthazar's hat off his head and put it over his own curls, squishing it down to fit and smiling, walking toward the door. "Unless you forgot what a DVD is, old-timer!" 

"I know what a DVD is, because you keep touching the undersides and getting fingerprints all over them!" Dakota turned around and held a hand up, his face and combining to make a "guilty" gesture before slipping out the door. 

He was right. He was more often than Cavendish gave him credit for. Murphy did like him just fine, maybe he had just been in the agency too long to think the way Dakota could. Maybe he could learn to again. Maybe he'd start celebrating his birthday again and find ways to relate to the normal people again.

It didn't fit to any logical plan. It didn't make any sense. It would be exciting.


End file.
